Bright and early this morning, the LADOT Bike Program, City Council District 11, the LA City General Services Department, and LADOT Field Crews installed the City’s newest bicycle corral at 15 West Washington right in front of the local neighborhood favorite, Hinano Cafe.

This installation is part of both the LADOT’s strategic plan, Great Streets for Los Angeles, and the 2035 Mobility plan which call for the installation of over 25 bicycle corrals throughout the metropolitan area.

Secure, safe bicycle parking is an essential element of a comprehensive bicycle network. Demand for bike parking in Los Angeles has continued to grow as ridership increases and the City’s bicycle network expands. A lack of adequate parking not only discourages ridership, but also encourages people to lock their bikes to parking meters, trees, or sidewalk furniture. Where there is bicycle traffic and limited sidewalk space, on-street bicycle parking offers a worthwhile alternative…. That’s where bicycle corrals come in!

Our bicycle corrals can accommodate up to 16 bicycles in the same area as a single vehicle parking space. They work best where sidewalks are too narrow to accommodate bicycle racks and in areas with both high levels of people bicycling and demand for bicycle parking like West Washington Blvd. When placed near street corners, a corral also increases visibility and creates an additional buffer between people walking and people driving which increases safety for all.

These new bicycle corrals have already proven popular throughout the City and our newest one was no exception. In fact, no sooner than the installation was complete, we had our first user!

Want a Bicycle Corral of Your Own?

Our People St Corral application cycle is currently on an open and rolling basis! You can learn more on our People St Bicycle Corral page where you can find the answers to FAQs and the application.

Eligible sponsors include business or property owners, non-profits, and community organizations. Sponsors must sign a maintenance agreement with the City in which the sponsor agrees to keep the corral clean and debris-free. Please note that corral placement restricts street sweeping. We suggest reaching out to our staff at peoplest@lacity.org to advise on any proposed location prior to submitting a full application.

Getting the corral off the drawing board and onto the ground was a lengthy process, but ultimately the project was able to march ahead thanks to both local residents’ support and political will. The day the bike corral officially opened was rightfully celebrated as a great stride in the city’s efforts to become more bicycle friendly.

However, great as these accomplishment are, we don’t fully know the impact of bike lane projects and neighborhood bike networks unless we collect data evaluating the impacts of all this new bike infrastructure. How do new bike lanes and road diets affect the number of people bicycling on a street? Do bike lanes improve overall street safety? These are questions we need to answer. Additionally, we don’t know where bike infrastructure is most needed, and has the most potential if we don’t know the popular cycling corridors in the city. Simply put, data collection is incredibly important for evaluating the effectiveness of existing bikeways, and determining how best to advance new bicycle projects.

The LACBC is now in the process of coordinating bike counts for 2013. They are scheduled to take place on the 10th and 14th of September, and the LACBC needs your help to put together the most comprehensive and accurate bike counts yet. Because this year’s bike counts will be conducted shortly after over a hundred of new miles have been implemented and with highly anticipated road diets on the horizon, they are especially crucial from a data collection standpoint. The LACBC’s September bike counts will offer an indication of how effective the past fiscal year’s bike lanes have been while offering important “before” data for future bike lane projects.

Ultimately, by simply continuing to count bicycle and pedestrian traffic, the LACBC will be collecting and compiling data the city unfortunately would not otherwise have, while reminding us not to overlook those walking and bicycling on our public streets. All modes of travel matter and deserve to be counted.

If you can, please consider signing up to volunteer for the LACBC’s bike counts. The simple act of collecting accurate data on bicycle and pedestrian usage on our streets will simultaneously help educate Angelenos on the growing popularity of active transportation, evaluate the effectiveness of existing bikeways, and provide valuable data on streets slated for future bikeways.

As a cyclist, there are few things that slow your roll more than stop signs and traffic lights. Getting back up to speed after stopping can take a lot of energy. Stopping at every light and stop sign can add minutes to your trip, and the extra exertion can leave you sweaty and tired when you get to your destination.

So, what do many cyclists do? Stop signs become yield signs, and often, traffic lights become stop signs. So called “California stops,” or rolling stops, are a common practice for both cyclists and motorists in Los Angeles, and across the country. The practice, while a boon to cyclist momentum, is unfortunately illegal. While states like Idaho, and more recently Virginia, allow cyclists to treat traffic control signals differently than cars do, California does not. In our state, bicycles are vehicles, and vehicles are bound by CVC 21462 and CVC 22450. While the first violation comes with a fine of less than $100 before administrative fees, additional violations increase the monetary cost of the infraction.

Setting aside the valuable, and very real point that bicycles are different than cars, and that bicycles are being made to adhere to a vehicle code that doesn’t totally apply to them, until statutes are changed, bicyclists should follow all traffic laws. They should do so for a number of reasons: Doing so will make cycling safer. It sets a good example for motorists, and it is the law. You might argue that treating a traffic control signal like a yield doesn’t harm anyone, and thus isn’t morally wrong, but this behavior can harm future plans for bicycle infrastructure, the lack of which can lead to real physical injury.

Running traffic lights works counter to the cause of those who want improved bicycle infrastructure because it creates community opposition to cyclists. Tom Stafford writes that what really annoys drivers about cyclists is this rule breaking behavior, even if no one is actually hurt by it, because it upsets the “moral order” of the road. Drivers get angry when they see a cyclist doing something they can’t do, whether that’s weaving between cars to move to the front of the queue or treating a stop light as a yield. There is almost a collective “Why do they get to go if I can’t?” uttered whenever a cyclist breezes through an empty intersection. To drivers, the rules of the road are the rules of the road.

As long as bicycles and cars are governed by the same sections of the Vehicle Code, drivers will think cyclists are “getting away with something” when they run red lights. This annoyance with rule breaking cyclists wouldn’t be as big of an issue for bicycle politics in Los Angeles or around the world if it was limited to the rule breakers themselves, but this isn’t the case.

Politically, you can see why this would be an issue. In order for the 2010 Bicycle Plan to be fully implemented, LADOT and cyclists across the city need to rely on local community support. If community members, having seen some cyclists treating a stop light as a yield, see this needed infrastructure as a giveaway to rulebreakers, it’s going to be an even tougher sell.

So please, I know it makes a lot of sense to safely glide though red lights and stop signs. I don’t like slowing my momentum putting my foot down for a full stop as much as the next cyclist, but fairly or unfairly, it hurts the cause of improving LA’s bicycle infrastructure every time you do. As long as bikes and cars have to follow the same rules, running red lights on two wheels just perpetuates incorrect generalizations that can make roads unsafe for cyclists in the short term, and make growing our bikeway network more difficult in the long term.

123 miles is about the distance from Los Angeles City Hall to downtown San Diego. Mayor Villaraigosa announced February 21st that it is also the number of bikeways installed by LADOT since the beginning of Bicycle Plan implementation in March 2011. The rate of 61 miles every 12 months is almost eight times as fast as in the last 40 years.

A list of the mileage completed so far this fiscal year can be found here:

After sharrowing 20 miles of roads in October 2011, LADOT crews will be sharrowing another 20 miles, starting this month. “Sharrows” are shorthand for Shared Lane Markings (SLMs), and are used to identify streets that are designated as shared roadways for bicyclists and motorists.

According to the Department’s Sharrow Report, SLMs have three primary functions: to be a supplemental wayfinding device, to help announce the presence of bicyclists to motorists, and inform bicyclists where they should ride to prevent “dooring“.

The Bureau of Sanitation is looking for the location of storm drain grates that they can upgrade to a design more friendly to bicycle tires. The current effort will help Sanitation to find locations that are the highest priority by bicyclists for replacement. The grate above on the left is an older design, while the right shows the new bicycle-safe one. Cross-hatching prevents tires from getting caught.

We need your help in finding grates that are the highest priority for replacement. If you see a grate that needs to be upgraded, please let us know the nearest intersection and what side of the street it is located on. For instance, a good description would be: “on the northbound side of Figueroa as it approaches 7th Street.” If possible, please include a photo of the grate in question.

Unfortunately, we cannot improve grates outside the jurisdiction of the City of Los Angeles, so please be sure the grate you are submitting is actually in City limits.

There are plenty of ways for you to let us know what grates need upgrading.